What I'm reading: Nixon's 'Wizard plan'

By Fareed Zakaria

"Now Nixon’s preoccupation, even obsession, after being forced from office was to become a respected figure. It wasn’t for him to live out the rest of his life in disgrace. He was determined to become someone people listened to—a senior statesman, a sage," writes Elizabeth Drew in The Atlantic. "And the best way to be considered a sage, Nixon understood, was to establish one’s credentials as an expert in foreign policy, a man known to world leaders. Domestic policy didn’t cut it the same way: Lectures and articles on education or the environment didn’t attract the Brahmins and the business leaders Nixon wanted to attract, didn’t occupy nearly as much space on the stage. No splashy trips."

"In accordance with the Wizard plan, the former president first would write another memoir (because statesmen wrote memoirs), both to make money and to give his own version of events."

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“The only thing that can genuinely dilute the power of the new Gas OPEC is the opening up of gas supplies in countries all around the world: in Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, France, Israel and any other country sitting on top of significant gas deposits,” writes Ezra Levant in the National Post. “The more shale gas that comes online, the less influence that GECF can have on gas prices — and the less they are able to manipulate the world’s gas supply. The freedom that comes with gas independence is just waiting for so many countries to grasp. It’s a future that can happen. But if the anti-fracking lobby succeeds in scaring more countries away from shale, the future of natural gas is going to look like the past. Only, with Russia’s new gas cartel in the mix, rigging supply and prices, it will soon begin to look even worse.”

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“The murky brown smoke that hangs over Beijing and other industrial cities has long presented a health challenge to China,” writes Edmund Newton in the Scientific American. “Unwilling to shut the factories and coal-burning plants that cause pollution, authorities instead are seeking novel solutions. Proposals have included seeding clouds to make rain to wash particulates out of the sky and equipping bicycles with pedal-powered generators that pump fresh air into riders’ helmets. The latest idea comes from Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde, who hopes to create bubbles of clean air in various pockets around the Beijing.”

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“Though Piketty is right that returns to capital have increased in the last few decades, he is too dismissive of the wide-ranging debate among economists concerning the causes,” argues Ken Rogoff for Project Syndicate. “For example, if the main driver is the massive influx of Asian labor into globalized trade markets, the growth model put forth by the Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow suggests that eventually capital stocks will adjust and the wage rate will rise. Retirements from an aging labor force will eventually drive up wages as well. If, on the other hand, labor’s share of income is falling because of the inexorable rise of automation, downward pressures on that share will continue, as I discussed in the context of artificial intelligence a few years ago.”

“Fortunately, there are much better ways to address rich-country inequality while still fostering long-term growth in demand for products from developing countries.”